Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

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Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

Postby kresica »

Hello,

I'm trying to build Xillinux with Xillybus demo logic using this manual:
http://xillybus.com/downloads/doc/xilly ... d_zynq.pdf

It all goes well until I hook up a monitor to the Zedboard. Zedboard boots up, routes the programmable logic and just indefinitely shows moving white Xillybus screensaver on a VGA output. According to the manual it means that "The Xillybus logo screensaver with a white background is present on the screen from the moment the logic fabric is loaded until the Linux kernel launches. It will also show when the operating system puts the driver in “blank” mode, which is a normal condition when the system is idle, or when the X-Windows system attempts to manipulate the graphic mode."

When hooked on a UART, it shows on a host computer that Xillinux boots up normally and is ready to use. I made a backup of the last working image which, when restored, also shows white Xillybus screensaver. I've been using both USB Image Tool and Win32 Disk Imager, which are recommended tools for burning Xillinux image on an SD card in a 3.6.2 chapter of a previously linked manual. I tried to format SD card to FAT filesystem and FAT32 filesystem and both give same result.

I'm baffled by this... Any suggestion how to solve this would be very helpful.
kresica
 
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Re: Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

Postby support »

Hello,

Sounds odd indeed. The first question I'd ask is if you're using a SanDisk SD card. It may seem irrelevant, but this is how often the solution to all kind of unexplainable situations.

Are you sure no components are read from the QSPI flash by mistake? Maybe you have some U-Boot environment parameters leftovers? Please refer to section 4.3.3 in the Getting Started Guide for Zynq.

It might be helpful to look for clues in Linux' boot log (possibly use the dmesg command). Does it say anything about detecting a graphics card? You should see something like "Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48".

And if everything else fails, would also suggest trying to re-run the entire setup process. Please verify that you're using the correct files in the FAT32 partition, and haven't mixed anything up with previous files.

Hope this helps a bit.

Regards,
Eli
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Re: Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

Postby kresica »

Thank you for your reply Eli.

SD card in question is some unmarked blue 4GB SD card included in the Zedboard dev kit (quick search on Google and I think it is Sandisk, just without a sticker). I haven't inspected booting log in detail yet, but I'll do it Monday, with particular care for environment variables from QSPI. I also have another SD card with prebuilt Xillinux image that boots up normally and shows Ubuntu GUI instead of white screensaver.
I'll include booting logs from both faulty and correct boot if I become stuck again.

Thanks,
kresica
kresica
 
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Re: Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

Postby support »

Hello,

As far as I know, the SD card that arrives with the Zedboard kit is not a SanDisk (mine surely wasn't). So a replacement is due, regardless the current issue.

Regards,
Eli
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Re: Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

Postby kresica »

Hello,

I've posted faulty boot log here:
http://pastebin.com/nNSnJurY

Working boot log looks the same as faulty boot log with exception of this line:
"[ 9.993935] xillybus_of 50000000.xillybus: No response from FPGA. Aborting."

So as it turns out, my generated bitstream file is faulty although Zedboard routes PL indicated with DONE LED. I've been using Vivado 2016.3 to generate bitstream. Working bitstream was generated using Vivado 2016.2 and c/p working bitstream with fresh Xillinux 1.3 image works like a charm.

Could the different Vivado version be the problem?
kresica
 
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Re: Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

Postby support »

Hello,

Xillinux has been used with a wide range of Vivado versions with no issues, but one can never rule out the possibility that something was changed in 2016.3 that made things break. I'll give it a go myself, hopefully soon.

Regards,
Eli
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Re: Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

Postby kresica »

Hello,

So I've built xillydemo bitstream with Vivado 2016.1 and everything works fine. For a fact I know that bitstream generated with Vivado 2016.2 also works fine since I had xillydemo with Xillinux image on the other SD card.

Problem arises with bitstream from Vivado 2016.3. I must note that with bitstream from 2016.3 Xillinux boots up fine, I can access folder structure through the terminal on a host PC, just without graphical interface.

Regards,
kresica
kresica
 
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Re: Xillinux stuck on white screensaver

Postby support »

Hello,

The problem turned out to be more serious than you described: The Tcl script that creates the Xillinux project failed in the middle with Vivado 2016.3, so the surprising part is that you managed to build anything at all after that.

The problem was some parameters in Xillybus' IP's component.xml file, which had calculated values by virtue of the spirit:resolve="dependent" tag. Vivado 2016.3 apparently didn't like something about these expressions, and the whole thing broke. The simple fix was to assign immediate values instead (as the dependency feature was never to be used anyhow).

This is fixed on Xillinux bundles of revisions 2.0a and later (to be released soon).

Thanks for the heads-up.

Regards,
Eli
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